According to reports, the first UK baby created with DNA from three people was born through the use of a groundbreaking IVF method.
The infant was born as a result of a procedure known as mitochondrial donation treatment (MDT), which entails removing the nucleus from one of the mother’s eggs containing her DNA and implanting it into a donor egg that had its nucleus removed but still contained the donor’s healthy mitochondrial DNA.
It is a method of producing IVF embryos free of the dangerous mutations that their mothers contain and are likely to pass on to their children.
Unlike conventional DNA, which contains genetic material that contributes to who we are, mitochondrial DNA gives power to the cell and has been likened to a battery.
The process was approved by the UK government in 2015, and a regulatory authority, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), examines requests for its use.
Through a Freedom of Information request to the HFEA, the first British “three-parent child” was discovered. According to the clinic, a small number of kids have now been born in the UK following MDT.
Professor Alison Murdoch, head of the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life, Newcastle University, who has been at the forefront of research in this area in the UK, said at the time the birth was “great news”.